Abstract

The theory of conversational implicature was first proposed by Herbert Paul Grice in 1967. Grice holds the view that in order to ensure the rational communication, the participants usually follow the basic principle which he called “cooperative principle” or CP in short. However, some people are unwilling to obey the principles, thus there occurs the violations of maxims.
After narrating the plot of My Fair Lady and introducing the conversational implicature theory and its cooperative principle, the paper gives detailed analysis of the dialogues in the film My Fair Lady.
It is widely known that the dialogues play an important role in a play. By analyzing the dialogues in My Fair Lady based on the theory of conversational implicature and its cooperative principle, readers can understand the film much better from a different perspective. And it can help English learners understand the theory better.

Key Words: conversational implicature  cooperative principle  My Fair Lady  dialogue  violation of maxims 

摘 要

会话含义理论最早由格莱斯于1967年提出。格莱斯认为，为了保证合理的交流，说话者通常会遵循一些基本的原则，他将这些原则称之为“合作原则”。但是，有些人不愿意遵守这些原则，因此就产生了对合作原则下的各项准则的违反。
本文在讲述《窈窕淑女》的故事情节以及介绍会话含义理论和其合作原则后，就电影《窈窕淑女》中的对白给出了具体的分析。众所周知在一部剧作中对话有着极其重要的作用，根据会话含义理论及其合作原则对《窈窕淑女》中的对白进行分析，读者可以从一个全新的角度更好地理解这部电影，同时这也可以帮助英语学习者更好地理解会话含义理论。

关键词：会话含义  合作原则  《窈窕淑女》  对白  准则的违反

1.    Introduction
My Fair Lady is a classical Hollywood movie whose script was adopted from the drama Pygmalion written by the famous dramatist George Bernard Shaw in England. To this works of Shaw, people have different comments, but a universal agreement is reached that it is a drama with a good structure and a pleasant plot.
My Fair Lady tells a story of a young girl--- Eliza’s transformation from a dirty flower girl who says broken English to an elegant lady who says standard English. My Fair Lady is a film about language. In the movie, there are plenty of dialogues, thus its script is worth of doing linguistic studies.